Software developers are constantly looking for ways to improve code quality. Code quality measures how well the code is designed and well the code conforms to that design. Code quality encompasses a wide range of qualities, such as usability, reliability, maintainability, scalability and performance. Code performance means the time it takes to execute the code under a given scenario (e.g. on given hardware, with a given number of concurrent users running specified tasks). Code quality can be measured through automated unit tests, which may be run at build time to determine the quality of a unit of code. The output of these automated tests may be a set of html or xml pages detailing passed/failed status of various tests, the performance of certain functions calls (e.g., performance time under a given scenario). A developer can manually reference these tests for use in improving future code quality. However, this is currently a manual process. The improvement in the quality of future code depends upon the developer expending the time to review the automated test results and the developer's ability to effectively interpret the test results and implement improvements.
Integrated development environments (IDEs) are known for aiding software developers to create code. These IDEs perform functions such as providing an icon or list of one or more potentially fitting source code elements based on probability. However, determining the suitability of suggested code elements relies upon the expertise of the developer.